Tuesday, 15 May 2018

Is American Patients First A Good Trading Opportunity?

So you were thinking enough of President Donald Trump for a week? Nope. Not even close. After a week rigged by different geopolitical news, the Republican leader unveiled its American Patients First plan to lower prescription drug prices in the country.

"The drug lobby is making an absolute fortune at the expense of American consumers, [...] We are putting American patients first."

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, APF is expected to operate in four areas: "increasing competition," "better negotiation," "creating incentives to lower list prices," and "reducing patient out-of-pocket spending."

Also, Medicare will not be given freedom to negotiate better deals, but the plan will give more flexibility to respond as list prices are changed. Instead, the Trump administration will be responsible for negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies.

Trump explained: “We’re very much eliminating the middlemen. The middlemen became very, very rich, right?” [...] Whoever those middlemen were — a lot of people never even figured it out — they’re rich. They won’t be so rich anymore.”

From the four areas were the plan is expected to operate, two are probably the ones which make more sound. Yes, we are talking about “increased competition” and “better negotiation”

Increased competition

Immediate Actions: In this case we are basically looking at further regulatory control for the industry itself. That will probably impact on government spending, as it will require more resources to be assigned to duties. Biological companies could also be benefited by certain government sponsored programs.

Prevent manufacturer gaming of regulatory processes

Promote innovation and competition for biologics

Stop Medicaid and ACA programs from increasing prices in the private market

Future Opportunities: If companies will be pushed to work on generic drug development, competition between them will skyrocket. Marketing spending is likely to be boosted as companies will be selling rather similar products.

Encourage sharing of samples needed for generic drug development

Additional efforts to promote the use of biosimilars

Better negotiation

The idea behind a “better negotiation” is to give the administration power to negotiate prices with the private sector, keeping the President posted about opportunities for lower prices and assess the problem of foreign free-riding.